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December 19, 2014 - HOURS-OF-SERVICE RESTART RELIEF PASSES

HOURS-OF-SERVICE RESTARTRELIEF PASSES

On December 13, 2014, Congress passed the FY 2015 Omnibus Appropriations bill providing funding for the vast majority of the federal government, including the Department of Transportation, for the current fiscal year. The President is expected to sign the bill into law shortly. Officially titled the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, the bill is over 1,700 pages long and, as you can imagine, has a host of detailed spending and policy-related provisions affecting many industries.

The most important trucking-related provision is language that provides relief from the two new restrictions of the hours of service restart rule. Specifically, the legislation suspends the requirement that all qualifying restarts contain two consecutive periods of time between 1am and 5am, and that it can only be used once every 168 hours (or seven days). In other words, the restart rule reverts back to the simple 34 hour restart in effect from 2003 to June 2013.

Carriers on E-Logs are encouraged to work with their ELD suppliers to determine what software updates are necessary to comply with this legislatively directed rule change. A short transition period may be necessary.